


Remembelonging

by Radiolaria



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bittersweet, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Episode: s06e08 Let's Kill Hitler, Gen, Headcanon, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 10:14:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1222462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS has a machine that makes machines. Once, she tries to make a human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembelonging

**Author's Note:**

> Ages ago, I drew a [little thing](http://24.media.tumblr.com/6924d49a3d1dc1ef98da6f3eb80a8aaa/tumblr_mre0ieg2cp1s12hlbo1_500.jpg) with the TARDIS and River, and several people asked about the possibility to have a fic with it. This is it. Rather plot-less pure reflective headcanon.
> 
> TARDIS' point of view induces peculiar phrasings.
> 
> Thank you to Roz for the beta reading.

How very small, and squishy.

There is a bit of Amelia Pond and of the Pretty One and oh, she wants to add parts of herself as well, golden sparks and bigger on the inside and blue because blue is pretty like artron energy, but blue and gold do not make blue and gold. Buttons blue and yellow as eyes.

She wants to add time in the mix. Not Time-time. Time wobbly and secretive. Trajectories of her flight between time streams, waves corkscrewed and bolted, slides and sea-linders. The calculations take a little time even for her and she concludes only hair possesses the necessary proprieties. _Shame_ , she would have loved a child with sea-weed fingers and jack-in-the-box legs. 

The River turns up with eyes very green and hair like solar eruptions. The equations are roughly the same, she consoles herself. Another time, she is all fiery eyes and braided hair.

The TARDIS falls, defeated by genetics.

And she has been expecting her for too long to turn her down on account of green or caramel eyes instead of blue and gold. She bore her unborn and whole and dead all at once, not knowing, just sensing. That’s _her_ , the TARDIS, but outside the box. Like the corral Thief has given away. The River has been a faint shadow in her Thief’s life –and hers- from the start. Second dimple on her Thief’s cheek. The moment she would touch it, it would be smooth skin, no fold. She doesn’t quite know what she is. From afar, complicated and extended, infinite, time event, disturbance. Closer, just life and smiles and skin. Her child.

If she tries to pick out the moment she starts, there is no skin. It is squishy and small, full of new, completely new. Not a person, not yet; but new and exciting and in loops, many. The TARDIS is the first to fall in love with her, when no one knows she exists. Even before something is aware of her existence. Something messing with memory and she feels close to ill. Something, blind spot, existing in time but not in History, wrong, and her squishy sun will be taken by them.

That’s the River, or will be, or was, the squishy ball of matter, taken in the future, and child of Ponds and TARDIS’. All in multiplying and sequences, cosmos in extension and maximum entropy; still bigger on the inside. As they are born, they lose the bigger on the inside. River is no exception, but not for always. She is oddly attracted to River when no one knows she exists.

 _Like me_ , she coos. _She does not talk, does not even dream._

The TARDIS blushes and cups her with her mind. The River feels like a tiny sun in eruption. She opens her doors wide in joy when she sees a part of her is erupting within this mish-mash of matter and life happening within the River, happening within Amelia Pond, happening within her corridors. It is soon before the Amelia Pond and her little erupting River will be taken from her belly and put in a goo-skin-suit.

She could have added more of her. She could have made a proper flying machine out of her. She probes but the River is even more incoherent than her. Expanding machine for now. Pure energy, not even emotions, courses her mass undefined and the TARDIS is relieved to have a playmate who is missing a body as well.

 _Talk,_ she queries _._ Being so much alike, they could _talk_.

River is pulsating on time instead, distracted building corridors, doors and engine rooms for her future bodies to live in and blast. River blasts them a lot.

The TARDIS sulks.

_So little time and you would rather put together a body than talk. Bodies don’t last long, you know._

 

***

 

The TARDIS cannot contain her joy when the River cannot “shut up” before her.

River is young still, a sketch of herself with images mobile, and features blurry. When her lives are all gone, later, the image is a little clearer.

She bursts through the doors, spitting bio-energy and molecular fumes, cooking her insides as she rambles, miffed and rumpled, about her Thief and her Ponds and she doesn’t know how to fly “the bloody phone-box”. 

The TARDIS can feel she is rerouted. Pure bravado guides her fingers on the console, which she touches with dread, with strangeness. Useless tinkering the TARDIS must correct. Time for a lesson. River’s mind is elsewhere. She talks about saving her parents, but she rants about letting them to their fate,

“They trusted him. Serves them right.”

 She talks about killing Thief, but

“The sod, he still cares.”

_Funny child._

But River’s hands are glued where they shouldn’t be and barely brush where they should hold firmly. She pulls her air-conditioning and gasps with surprise when a tornado occurs.

“Child of the TARDIS, my foot” and she kicks her console, half-heartedly. The TARDIS, offended and determined to raise her properly, spews back the bullet her child shot into her and the River dodges to the floor. The bullet twirls and ricochets before marking a wall –first scar! River gets up, shaky, and indignantly bellows:

“Are you insane?”

_You shot me._

The River answers. Despite her head being fuzzy with a lot of something and interrogation marks, she listens.

“I came here to _help_ ,” River, breathless. “That never happens. You should thank me!”

_You are doing nothing to be thanked for. Hand on the wheel. Here, little Song._

The TARDIS pushes her gently, guiding her, but River rebuffs, clutching to the railings and reluctant to go anywhere near the column that shot her.

The sinews tense, the muscles block; bodies are machines, hustling souls instead of forces. River feels differently inside and the TARDIS can tell she is her daughter. She must be.

_River. Promise._

But River doesn’t move, she resists the nudges and caresses, and baits. Her head shaking disturbs the atoms all around.

“I have no idea what you want me to do.”

The TARDIS pecks the back of her mind, annoyed. River is supposed to hear much more than the common passengers passing her doors. River is her child.

_Pond!_

“A pond? I know who I am thank you.”

Her time cooling tank leaks, one drop, two drops, moistening her sensors. She is there when she happens the first time. She sees the little erupting sun and she sees life and time weaving her. River is hers as much as the Ponds. They lose years when River is not home, they lose her childhood and billions of toys the TARDIS would have given her. The memory of her mother is so deeply buried in River’s mind, it might be lost. The time the TARDIS tries to sing for her and little River cries. The time the TARDIS finds Thief’s cot, which he had misplaced in the vivarium. The time little River is not River and the TARDIS cries for she cannot comfort Amelia Pond because her Thief takes her away. The time the TARDIS does not envy the Amelia Pond.

Perhaps River forgets this time. Oh, they could have many times. They had. Will have. But too few.

The TARDIS bites her tongue and the River jumps as if pricked. She rubs her flank and pulls up the fabric covering her body, checking the clear skin. The TARDIS is always disappointed not to find springs and buttons.

“You can’t do that! I’m not a pony.”

The TARDIS is confused as to what a “pony” is.

“Stop ordering me around.” The River’s voice is plenty impatient now and she looks under the console. “Is there a manual?”

 _He decided to gift it to a star so that she can build new planets._  

River’s head pops up.

“What are you talking about?”

_You cannot “shut up” and I love you, River._

“Of course, I cannot shut up, what do I bloody do?” River’s head drops down. “And the name’s Melody.”

The TARDIS tries another way of getting her to put her hands in the right place while River has decided to explore the console room in search of the manual-now-bird’s-atoms-on-Andromeda.

_The River can listen, does not hear._

River runs around, stealing away, while the TARDIS tries to stick her hands to the wheel, repeating: “Herechild. Noyourhandhere. Herechild.” Little cries of frustration escape River’s lips until she is puffing and halts.

“Okay, calm down. If I put my hands back on the… giant hair-dryer, will you stop biting me like that?” The River ruffles her hair in defeat. “He said I was your child. What does he mean by that?”

She tries to say something but words are fickle things. She mimics the Doctor and the River seems more and more confused.

“I don’t understand.”

She cannot answer, so she shows her. The console room under her child’s feet turns into a vast sea of time, her fabric, let bare. River, surprised, cannot do anything but swim. And this swimming, this natural response to the liquid is her flying the TARDIS. Each stroke letting her forward is a textbook manoeuvre. Same fabric, _you see_.

“Now, you’re talking.”

River can perceive the levers and buttons flicking, clicking, chatting. Bringing the Ponds home is tricky: it involves materialising on another scale, with limited room and around people. Out of her Thief’s reach.

But the River must do it properly.

She models a vast arena filled with water and at the centre of it are Amelia Pond and the Pretty One. This is their interface, the place allowing them to communicate.

The River is too confused for telepathy-teaching so the TARDIS has built her a merry-go-brain. River follows the TARDIS and the TARDIS follows River. It’s a question of timing.

“It’s like a game?”

_It’s like a game._

The River looks a bit surprised, taking it for a dream, but still takes action. She is good with dreams, River. Riding an indefinite white cow –it’s a “chimera” in River’s mind; the TARDIS doesn’t know what a “chimera” is and decides “cow” fits its aspect- River manoeuvres towards them and the TARDIS follows her unconscious orders. It gets them in the Death machine with Amelia Pond and the Pretty One.

“Rory, I love you.”

For a short time, they are alone together; her Ponds are still hugging before the doors, oblivious to their lucky fate. And River is unmoving, hands on the commands. She cannot understand what just happened and might have discovered squaring the Universe.

_Hello._

When she doesn’t answer, the TARDIS wheezes with excitement. The River remembelongs to her.

She looks like Susan. But not completely. River is hers and Amelia Pond’s and she has Amelia Pond’s face when she saw for the first time the little River in her arms, all pink and white, and at last understood by her Thief.

She huffs _. She could understand the child ages ago._

 

 

 ***

 

 

The River is on the glass floor. One time, many times, or never.

_When you were a wheezing erupting sun, I could see you more clearly. You are all angles and spirals and emotions and fists when you are later (somewhen, somehow, but definitely later)._

_Stop dancing,_ she pleads.

The River dances too much. She hops in time with a bracelet the TARDIS doesn’t like, but envies a little because with it the River waltzes much more than her Thief. It makes her dizzy. There are more places and moments where her child has been on many occasions and she is wrapped in her presence. It feels good.

She must do it on purpose, leave herself all across time and space.

The TARDIS doesn’t run into her sisters and brothers. They are lost. She runs into her daughter instead.

_Funny thing, a child._

She wants to say her crack-a-doodle ideas about falling are beautiful and she wants to try them with her Thief on board. Thief would produce that ridiculous sound with his mouth. He doesn’t like falling that much. Even if it is the closest to flying. River loves flying but cannot, except in the Big Pile of Books, where everything is possible.

Everything except being visited by her mother.

She wants to say her eyes were made to look like bigger on the inside and her hair like time –she would want to wet time just to see if the results are the same.

She wants to tell her how excited she is River cracked the code to synchronise her hypothalamus with the mainframe external circuit so that she can leave the Big Pile of Books and play with her.

The River is a conscience in circuits and codes, like her. Playmate missing a body.

She wants to tell her dying will hurt, but after she will be all free and bigger on the inside again. She will be a still TARDIS with a universe inside, not outside. Wardrobe-human. All of time and space, but within, in the head, in the circuitry. Travels through dreams and sleep. She could never achieve it herself.

The TARDIS is the one not alive, the River is the one not awake. She likes it. 

She vaguely remembers -remember, remember, not a word for her- being alive, her Thief in flesh, her Ponds in love. The River may regret not being awake, alive, but as long as she has the Little Girl to drive her through all of History, she is happy. Just as the TARDIS is happy with her Thief.

Or maybe not as happy. She won’t have Thief. She won’t have end.

The TARDIS feels flickers in River. As if time is slipping through her and sapping her energy. Alive people are supposed to lose time, little by little. Alive people don’t last for always. TARDISes do, but TARDISes are not alive people; they can stand it. The TARDIS doesn’t know what she is without time within. But she knows people are no more when they are without time left. It is sad, but end is good. Her Thief would want end sometimes. Alive is tiring; the TARDIS did not last long –a mayfly. That’s why alive people are a little bit afraid of the big flicker but relish in finding it.

Eternity is alone.

And River is tired. She dances always, and fights, and teaches, and she takes Thief and Sexy with her and they laugh, although last time the TARDIS tried, her Thief thought one of her hinges had been torn again. When River wears her not-erupting-sun or barely-emptied-of-lives face, she is more and more tired. The TARDIS doesn’t trust it. Her Thief died of it; once, twice, she can’t recall. Her Children of Time often do. River won’t. It still pains her.

The TARDIS tries to feed her time. Nibble and nibble to give her strength.

_It’s good. It’s not life, but it helps._

River won’t eat time and she flickers on.

When she is in the Big Pile of Books, River doesn’t flicker, but the TARDIS can’t talk to her there.

When the TARDIS talks, River cannot hear, though she listens. Because River is skin and smiles and life. Not for always. River doesn’t eat time.

She remembers –remember, not for her; she strives to, because she is her mother- River and sometimes when the River sleeps, she slips into her mad-lady voice-interface suit with eyes and hands, and watches over her quietness. She pretends she watches her with eyes. Not measures and sensors. She can guess the heap of molecules corresponding to the River’s elbow brushing against the heap of matter corresponding to her floor. She can sense the waves in the air, with River as the source and the pattern indicates River is singing.

Her lips are touching: humming.

The Doctor is far away in the recreation park and River knows it.

For now, they are alone.

The River is humming for the TARDIS.

Her circuits have crossed, and her minds burnt out.

TARDISes are not made for pride, aren’t they?

TARDISes are not made for love either and she found Thief and My Girl Martha and the Ponds. She’s lucky the River found her, caught in all the impossible and paradoxes.

She pretends she can rock the River the way Amelia Pond does, she pretends River sees eyes that look down on her like the Pretty One’s looking at her, rose and white.

TARDISes do not pretend. But she is no usual TARDIS. She has a child. And for a child she can pretend. Her child is pretending her mother can _hear_ with ears, and hug with arms.

The River hums like a faulty TARDIS she once met. Before taking off, she would hum harmoniously a melody of her own and the pilot never tried to fix it. River drifts into sleep and the TARDIS heats up the console room. Her Thief will be cross but he can go build himself a freezer.


End file.
